Death Sends for the Doctor (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  Downstairs, they found the table laid for two, with cold meats, salad, trifle, and cheeses of three kinds. They were served in a small dining-room, newly and elegantly decorated in the same good style as the upstairs rooms. The motor clubs and several so-called travelling epicures had awarded the Red Lion their accolades for hospitality, and the landlady was determined to keep and merit them.

  “If there is anything more you need, gentlemen, please ring the bell by the fireplace. We are a little distracted by the tragedy here and you must excuse any shortcomings. I understand you have come to help the local police bring the murderer to justice. We wish you well and will do all we can to make you comfortable.”

  “Oh, yes, be sure of that, gents. We wish you good-luck, in spite of the fact that Beharrell deserved all that was comin’ to him.”

  The voice came from the open doorway, where Mr. Hope himself had appeared with a tray bearing the two pints of beer. He had been drinking in his own department and wobbled as he walked.

  “My husband is upset, too. He doesn’t know what he is saying.”

  Mrs. Hope was anxious to get him out of the room, but Hope showed a tendency to stay and talk.

  “Don’t you try to push me around, missus. And don’t make any excuses for me. I mean what I said. Beharrell got wot was comin’ to him. Now, didn’t he? You should know, Mrs. Hope. You should know.”

  He put down the two tankards and breathed a blast of whisky in Littlejohn’s direction. Then he stood back, still holding the tray horizontally on the tips of his fingers.

  “The truth was, gents, Doctor Beharrell couldn’t leave the women alone. Could he, Claudine?”

  The woman was furious and her breast heaved and her fine eyes glowed with anger. With a strength quite in keeping with her build, she seized her husband from behind, under the armpits. He was at once reduced to a helpless beseeching mass of heaving muscles.

  “Don’t tickle me, Claudine … Leave me alone … Get away …”

  He fought to recover the advantage, but she hung on to him like a wild animal, her fingers digging in his ribs, following his every move to keep behind him. Finally, she manoeuvred him, yelling hysterically, to the door, pushed him through, and returned to set matters right.

  “I must apologise again for my husband, sirs. He has been very upset by Dr. Beharrell’s death. After all, he was in his employ as chauffeur for many years. He has been drinking to forget, and it does not agree with him. He is a nervous man and takes his drink badly. He will apologise himself in the morning. I hope you have not been disturbed.”

  “Not at all. We’ll finish our meal and retire very soon. I’m sorry we’re so late, Mrs. Hope.”

  “The Chief of Police says he hopes you’ll have a comfortable night and he will call at the police station here to see you in the morning about ten o’clock. And, by the way, Mr. Hope spoke in a very unseemly manner of the dead. Dr. Beharrell was a good man and what my husband said of his ways with women is untrue. He will tell you so himself in the morning. Goodnight. Leave the lights. The porter will see to them.”

  She left them, now calm again, and disappeared in the passage.

  “Well …”

  Cromwell sighed and set about his supper.

  “We seem to have picked up quite a lot of information locally already, true or untrue. I can understand Dr. Beharrell taking a fancy to Mrs. Hope. Any man who’s a bachelor or its equivalent might be shaken by her, but to have him and her denounced by the wretched drunken husband before he’s even been introduced, is a good start, isn’t it?”

  They were too tired to talk much more, but ate their meal quietly, old friends understanding each other’s silence, and then went to bed without even a final smoke.

  The last thing Littlejohn remembered was the tinkling chimes of St. Hilary’s striking half past one, and the scent of wallflowers filling his room.

  3

  UPPER SQUARE

  “ANOTHER!”

  Littlejohn and Cromwell had hardly started breakfast before a third visitor arrived. This time it was Sergeant Plumtree.

  The maid had called them just before eight and Littlejohn had quickly flung back the curtains to get a look at the place in daylight.

  The window gave a full view of the square, the heart of Caldicott, which was just starting to beat. The corporation garbage-cart was doing the rounds and two hefty men were leisurely collecting dust-bins behind the houses, emptying their contents in their large tank-like vehicle, and then giving the bins a final pounding on the sides of the cart to make sure the job was properly completed. This racket kept the town pigeons circling frenziedly round the square. Then, the tower of St. Hilary’s added to the symphony of percussion by casting out the chimes of eight o’clock, followed by a flock of jackdaws which joined the pigeons in a single circuit and then returned to the church.

  The house of Dr. Beharrell stood right opposite the hotel and the one next door which the old bonesetter had, years ago, added to his property. To the left of that, another large three-storied building, with a gilt sign. SWITHIN GRALAM. ANTIQUES. To the right of Beharrell’s, a tall narrow property with a barber’s sign over the door. ERIC GIBBET. LADIES AND GENTS HAIRDRESSER. COIFFURES MODERNES. A sergeant of police was ponderously entering the barber’s shop.

  Between the antique dealer’s and the vicarage of the church, was a gap where the main road through the square left for Cold Staunton and Peterborough. Through this space, Littlejohn got a narrow view of an immense stretch of flat country, with a great church tower in the distance, drainage canals, low farms and clusters of small houses scattered about. The sun was shining and a thin mist curled over the low fields.

  The bedroom itself showed that fresh capital had recently been sunk in this old hotel. Everywhere good taste, and money to indulge it. A shower-bath in a tiled alcove, white walls, polished floors, a light oak bed, and cretonne curtains.

  Next door a rhythmic bumping told that Cromwell was performing his daily exercises.

  They went down together and the landlady met them in the hall, conducted them to a small dining-room, and asked if they wished for English or Continental breakfast. This place, too, had been recently furnished in plain tasteful style, with small tables covered with red and white check table cloths.

  “I hope you have both slept well.”

  Mrs. Hope was well-groomed and fresh at that early hour. She flashed a smile at Cromwell who asked for bacon and eggs and nodded sympathetically at Littlejohn when he ordered rolls and coffee. The bread was freshly made and warm.

  Then Hope himself put in an appearance. He didn’t look half as fit as his wife. Pale puffy cheeks, bags under his eyes, his tie askew. His wife had made him put on a jacket, collar and tie, which he didn’t usually wear until lunch time.

  “Mornin’, sirs …”

  Hope was nervous and husky and had obviously been ordered to make his peace with his guests.

  “I gather, sirs, I was a bit sharp with you last night. S’matter of fact, I’d been havin’ a drink or two with some old customers and I’m afraid I overdid it. I’ve no notion of what I said to you, but the wife says it was a bit thick. I’m sorry, sirs, and I hope you’ll forget it.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The bell in the hall thereupon rang and Hope made a quick excuse and exit to answer it. It was Sergeant Plumtree calling to pay his respects.

  “Another!”

  Plumtree said he wouldn’t come in until the Scotland Yard men had finished their meal, and remained talking to Hope in the passage, his voice echoing like a bass bassoon round the staircase.

  “Have you ever noticed, sir, that wherever we stay, there’s some sort of drama going on between the landlord and his wife.”

  He had set about his bacon and eggs with gusto and as his hunger slowly vanished, his humour returned.

  “Remember the Blowitts, sir, in the Enderby case.1 The landlord locked himself in a room and played the piano after they’d had a tiff, and then she ran o
ff with a man with a glass eye and left him with the pub to himself. Which seemed to suit him, because he married the blonde barmaid …”

  Plumtree entered nervously, but swelled visibly after Littlejohn and Cromwell had shaken him by the hand and the Superintendent had invited him to remove his helmet, sit down, and take a cup of coffee with them.

  The barber had made a good job of Plumtree in honour of his distinguished visitors and the forthcoming inquest on Dr. Beharrell that morning. His hair was clipped right down to his scalp, his bushy eyebrows had been groomed, his moustache trimmed, and the hairs which usually sprouted from his ears and nostrils removed.

  “Been havin’ a good wash for the occasion?” Hope had offensively asked.

  “Tell them I’m ’ere, and no sauce from you.”

  Plumtree didn’t quite know what was expected of him. This was his first murder case and Scotland Yard and its occupants were to his modest imagination as alien and remote as the North Pole. He had read about them in paper-backed novels and grubby books his wife borrowed at twopence a time from a nearby stationer’s library. It gave him quite a pleasant shock to find that Littlejohn smoked a pipe and Cromwell was as fond of bacon and eggs as he was himself.

  “Just two ordinary fellows, they are. The Super’s a proper toff and you wouldn’t think to see him that he was famous at all,” he told his wife in bed that night. But, after almost an hour of exhausting narrative of the day’s events, she was asleep. Thus do the wives of great men preserve their husbands’ modesty and sense of proportion.

  “I believe you found the body, sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. As soon as the Chief Constable arrives, we’ll go over and inspect the ’ouse.”

  “And medical evidence puts death down as taking place last Friday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The day mentioned on the three notes which we received between us?”

  “That is so, sir.”

  Plumtree was speaking in his posh voice, as though talking with a plum in his mouth.

  “I’ve had a report on the notes themselves—our own and the two your police were good enough to send me. The paper was slightly better than newsprint; the sort used for magazines of a cheap variety. No fingerprints. Our experts think the writing was that of an educated man trying to make it appear illiterate.”

  Plumtree’s eyes grew round with wonder and his mouth opened as though he were about to burst into a song of praise.

  “… The letter ‘e’ on one note had been made in Greek style.”

  Littlejohn showed Plumtree how it had been done by making a Greek ‘e’ on the tablecloth with his thumbnail.

  “Then, the writer had tried to obliterate it by superimposing an ordinary ‘e.’ But we have ways of bringing such things to light.”

  Plumtree blinked. Here was a matter with which he would dazzle his wife and family tonight! They thought a policeman’s job was pounding a beat and organising traffic and little boys. He’d show ’em … But the Greek ‘e’ which he drew with his own fingernail that evening was the wrong way round, and he was duly corrected by his eldest, who was a bright boy … The tale fell flat. But has nothing to do with the case of the deceased Dr. Beharrell.

  “What kind of a man was the doctor?”

  “A bit odd, sir. His father and grandfather before him were in the same house as doctors, only they were quacks, sir. No degrees, you see. But the doctor went to the university. His wife ran away with a R.A.F. officer during the war. A lot younger than him, she was, and very good-lookin’, I’m told, sir. After that, the doctor became a recluse. Never went out much except to see patients.”

  “He was murdered in his own room, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir. His mother ’ad recently died, suddenly. She lived near Peterborough and when we didn’t see the doctor, we thought he’d gone to attend to her affairs. In fact, a vanful of her belongings ’ad arrived from her home and it was tryin’ to re-arrange the furniture to find room for the stuff that had come from Peterborough, that Mrs. Trott, the housekeeper, moved the wardrobe she always thought was a fixture, found the secret door, opened it, and there was the body …”

  “So he hadn’t been away, at all.”

  “Yes, he had, sir. He’d been off to sort out what he wanted from his mother’s house. Must have done. How else was it decided what should come by van and what stay at Peterborough?”

  “And he returned unknown to anybody last Friday.”

  “Yes, sir. If you’d care to look here in my book, you’ll get an idea of his movements checked at this end and at the Peterborough end, where the woman as kept house for his mother was able to supply the information. I went there yesterday.”

  Plumtree thereupon drew a black notebook from his breast pocket, snapped back the elastic band and, breathing heavily, introduced Littlejohn to the contents, written in a laborious, sprawling hand.

  Information supplied by Mrs. Mills, housekeeper to Mrs. Beharrell, Peterborough.

  Saturday, May 12.—Mrs. Beharrell taken ill with heart attack. Dr. Beharrell notified.

  Sunday, May 13.—Dr. Beharrell called to see his mother at 2.0 p.m. Left at 3.0 p.m. saying he had urgent patient to see.

  Monday, May 14.—Mrs. Beharrell died suddenly. Dr. B. called for half an hour same evening.

  Thursday, May 17.—Funeral of Mrs. B. Dr. B. attended and left immediately after.

  Friday, May 18.—Doctor at Peterborough selecting furniture to be sent to his house, 2.0—3.0 p.m.

  Plumtree turned over to the next page.

  “And ’ere, sir, is what you might call the reverse end—the information supplied by Mrs. Trott, the doctor’s housekeeper, and Dr. Macfarlane, his assistant.

  Sunday, May 13.—Dr. Beharrell had no urgent patient to see, as far as Dr. Macfarlane knows.

  Thursday, May 17.—Dr. B. arrived home about 4.30 after funeral.

  Friday, May 18.—Dr. B. left home about noon to go to sort out mother’s furniture. Not seen again by Mrs. Trott or Dr. MacF. N.B.—Mrs. Trott’s day off and she went out from 2.0 till 9.30. Dr. MacF. indoors until 3.0. Then went on visits till 5.30. Evening surgery 6.30—8.0.

  Littlejohn handed back the book.

  “You seem to have made a thorough job of it, Plumtree. It confirms Dr. Beharrell’s tendencies to be a recluse. He couldn’t even spare time to stay long with his dying mother.”

  “Since his wife left him, he’d gone very queer, sir. Jumpy and nervous and reluctant to leave home for long at once. Dr. Macfarlane told me Dr. Beharrell hadn’t been away on holidays for years and years. Hadn’t even slept away from home for a single night …”

  There was a pause as a maid came and cleared away the breakfast things. St. Hilary’s struck ten.

  Plumtree consulted his large watch.

  “The Chief Constable’s due any minute, sir. St. Hilary’s is five minutes fast according to the wireless pip-pips. I said I’d ask you to come to the police station to meet ’im.”

  “Right. Lead on then, Plumtree.”

  They all adjourned to the police headquarters a couple of doors away. This time the Guildhall clock was striking ten. Plumtree looked exasperated.

  “It’s a proper job to get the right time in Caldicott. You’d observe the church clock struck five minutes before the Guildhall. Yesterday, it was strikin’ after. The church clock’s suddenly gone haywire, strikin’ all sorts o’ times at all sorts o’ hours. That’s what the scaffolding’s there for. One of the pieces of the dial got broke and they found a jackdaw nestin’ in the machinery.”

  “Why is this called Upper Square? Is there a Lower Square somewhere?”

  Cromwell, puffing his pipe, was admiring the old houses and the beds of flowers surrounding the bronze soldier.

  “Oh, no. There’s no other square, Mr. Cromwell. It really means the upper-class square. Where the upper-ten lived for hundreds of years. Now, as you see, its mainly commercial and offices.”

  With a wide sweep of his paw, Plumtree indicated
all sides of the square. Next to the barber’s shop, two houses converted into private offices, with a long column of plates on the door jamb. Adjacent to the police station, an old house used by medical consultants, judging from the names on the door, and then a small shop in the window of which a stylish blonde was placing a solitary hat. MADAME JOCELIN, MODES. The girl in the window waved a jaunty greeting to Plumtree, who blushed.

  From an open window above the hat shop came first the strains of a piano, then a shrill voice howling scales went up and down and consecutively higher and higher until Plumtree could stand it no more. He furiously rang the bell at the door labelled MADAME ALCARDI, BEL CANTO.

  “Tell madame,” he sternly said to a pupil who answered, “tell madame to shut the window. There’s an h’inquest on at the Guildhall this mornin’ and all that row isn’t decent.”

  “Howlin’!” he muttered to himself as the window above his head was flung down with a resounding bang.

  The police station was a small place with a private office, a charge-room, constables’ quarters, and cells below. The furniture was plain and shabby from long use and the green walls needed another coat of paint. The air smelled of disinfectant and of the stale scented brilliantine with which Hubbard anointed himself now and then. The walls of Plumtree’s office were covered with official notices, a large map of the district, and a huge chart showing how to apply artificial respiration in cases of drowning or electric shock.

  A police car drew up outside and the Chief Constable emerged in a series of contorted efforts. Major Jessop, a large, heavy, pug-faced man, who had risen from the ranks and distinguished himself in the Middle East during the war. The four big men seemed to fill the private room to capacity.

  There was an exchange of greetings and civilities. Plumtree was a bit put-out because he couldn’t offer tea all round, but that morning Hubbard, in the course of washing-up, had dropped the teapot among the saucers and smashed the lot.